Rep. Mark Finchem demonstrates once again that he has no shame

Rep. Mark Finchem, presumably kitted up in his “full armor of God,” chose the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection to once again toss out the fantastical (and completely baseless) claim that Arizona’s vote was rigged.

Isn’t that special?

On a solemn day when the country marks the one-year anniversary of the appalling attack on democracy – after a year of looking high and low for fraud and not finding it – Finchem flatly, shamelessly claims that “tens of thousands” of votes in Maricopa and Pima counties were fraudulent.

“The real insurrection was run by (then-Maricopa County Recorder Adrian) Fontes and (Secretary of State Katie) Hobbs in Maricopa and Pima on the run up to Nov 3rd and several days after where they rigged the vote in Arizona with tens of thousands of fraudulent votes in each of those counties,” he tweeted on Thursday.

Of course, Finchem has no evidence of this because there isn’t any.

One anonymous email is not proof

In Maricopa County, a five-month audit turned up no fraud, only “anomalies” for which the Senate’s ninja auditors admitted there could be explanations. On Wednesday, after a three-month examination of the auditors’ claims, the Republican-controlled county provided those explanations.

Mostly, that the auditors had “a basic misunderstanding or ignorance of election laws and procedures”.

The county did, however, find that one of the auditors’ 75 findings was correct.

Of 2.1 million votes cast in the 2020 election, there were 87 questionable ballots: 37 cases of potential fraud, mostly involving dead voters, and 50 ballots that were mistakenly counted twice.

In Pima County, as in Maricopa, there has been no sighting of “tens of thousands” of phony ballots. Finchem is relying on an 14-month-old anonymous email, detailing an imagined plot by the Pima County Democratic Party to insert 35,000 phony votes into the system. The claims already have been investigated by Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s Elections Integrity Unit but no evidence was found.

And still Finchem rages about a rigged election.

Distrust? Forget that. There’s points to score

But then, there are political fortunes to be made, points to be scored, money to be raised and to heck with the impact of spreading lies and sowing distrust in the very foundation of our way of life.

Finchem is one of Arizona’s loudest leaders in Trump’s Stop the Steal brigade, an Oro Valley Republican who is hoping to howl his way into the Secretary of State’s Office so he can oversee elections in one of the country’s key swing states.

It was Finchem who hosted that Nov. 30, 2020 “hearing,” during which Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani regaled the public with the many ways in which Arizona’s election was stolen. Giuliani spent all day presenting “expert” witnesses, not a single one of whom provided any actual evidence of fraud.

Finchem, however, was undeterred.

“Ladies and gentleman, this is a skirmish,” he declared at the end of that hearing. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Because when Satan wants to extinguish a light, he will stop at nothing. So be on your guard, put on the full armor of God, and be prepared to fight.”

Maybe Finchem will grow a conscience?

In the weeks that would follow, Finchem promoted the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal protest at the nation’s Capitol. He was there one year ago, as the Trump mob broke into the Capitol, hoping to stop Joe Biden from becoming president.

He even justified the deadly violence as “what happens when the people feel they have been ignored”.

He has spent the last year working to undermine voter confidence in elections – and boost his own political prospects – and it has thus far paid off.

Trump has endorsed him, which is apparently, all that counts any more in the once-Grand Old Party.

And now, on a day when all Americans should be reflecting on just how easily our democracy could crumble, there is Finchem, boldly braying on about a stolen election.

It’s a lie and he knows it.

Maybe if he loosened up that armor just a bit, he’d have room to grow a conscience.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Arizona Republic can be found here ***